Author: Liljumper

Happy adoption day to me! So fitting with Father’s day yesterday. Thank you for having the two best parents in the world!

The thesis is plodding along. At the beginning of June I had a meeting and realized that while I thought I had done a lot of work, it was actually not enough. So I’ve been in crazy work mode for the last two weeks trying to get through over 200 pages of copied material, rereading my last book, as well as writing and gathering more research. It’s been a struggle and on top of all the other things in my life, relationships, exercise, and the summer. I will never get used to working during the summer.

My advisor was telling us we should enjoy this time, the work we elected and feel passionately about. This is our time to write to talk about it and find our own voice. I am very passionate about my topic and there are endless depths of things I want to say. But it’s always beginning that is hard.

I ask myself who am I to write anything? What are my thoughts? While there may not be a right or wrong, I wonder do I feel so strongly behind this I could defend it? What will I defend?

It has been a struggle to get to where I am, on the other side of the two week struggle in which I’ve been reading 50-60 pages of my novel, 2-3 articles (ranging from 20-50 pages each), as well as trying to write everyday (at least 30 mins and 5 mins more each week). Not to mention I’ve also been trying to read for my book blog as well as color and do yoga.

 

I always prided myself on being together, having things sorted, being whole. In my family I felt like if there was chaos and what not, that was who I was. I was putting my life together, I had a job in college, I was aware of my path, goal oriented, finance and savings oriented, the whole thing. I felt safe, secure in my identity.

Coming to Germany shook everything to the core. Having defined my whole identity on being independent, grown up, feeling like I had to grow up sooner than maybe my age. That’s who I was. I was the mature one, the secure one, the one who had things together, who could take care of herself. I came to Germany and my whole identity exploded and had to reforge itself. Falling into a pretty deep depression and feeling totally shattered and unable to get my grounds. I was totally removed from everything and myself.

Nothing was how it should have been, my whole idea about my life had changed and I was probably the unhappiest in my life so far to date. Because even when I was going through my ex before, I had my family behind me and friends near me. I maybe didn’t know who I was, but I still felt like a separate person, able to go out and buy groceries, to give people directions.

Coming here felt almost crippling at the beginning. It’s strange because I tell people I’ve adjusted here, but some days it just hits me how much I’m still riding those shock waves. Still feeling so anxious all the time, so lumpy, so unfocused, so dependent. I actually try not to think about it that much because I’m partially scared of going back into that hole. But it’s that quiet voice creeping in my head, waiting for me to acknowledge it exists again, when the weight of all that rubble threatens to come down around my ears, burying me.

There are days where it feels like I’ve finally done it, manage to move forwards. Then there are other days when I look behind me and see how I used to feel, all the things that have fallen away from me, the scars and the open wounds beneath tape.

I wonder if I’ll ever feel that confident in myself again. Feel so whole. Because I defined myself around having things together. Perhaps I was never whole to begin with, always a mish mash and never complete, so if there’s no wholeness to return back to, then maybe I’m not broken now. So if that’s the case (and according to the literary theory I’ve been reading it is) then I don’t feel broken, I feel ripped apart.

Maybe if anything I’ve managed to put together some of these pieces with some fragile tape, but looking around me at the tatters, I wonder how long it takes to put it all together.

I’ve always been good at puzzles and knowing if I sit down long enough, it’ll come together, but perhaps this puzzle will take me my whole life to put back together again.

So I’ve stopped engaging in this hobby (to be clear, the consumerism end of it) more lately. I still put on my makeup when I go out and watch videos about how to be better at it. Why wouldn’t I? If I’m going to have it, which I do, might as well put it on as well as I can so I don’t look like a tragic clown. So I see no reason to cease the tutorials in order to develop my skills and use what I have the best I can.

The consumerism aspect I have greatly cut down for a few reasons. I have reached the limit of things I want and have found a variety of things that make me happy that I use. I have done lots of experimenting, but that phase is closing, having found things I really enjoy. I am happy with the collection and things I have.

Yet on another level, I have realized it has become more acceptable for me to decrease my consumerist tendencies in this area. It is a source of positive encouragement and reinforcement. It is the more acceptable route of living, continuing down the road is frowned upon maybe even shamed (by certain partners). So stopping cannot be devoid from an ‘acceptability’ desire as well. It has been a source of contention and it seems beneficial to cut down on that by buying less.

At the end of the day, I want to accepted for who I am. Not because it is acceptable. Not because it is the way that I am seen. I am a dynamic individual, someone capable of change. I am who I am. Exactly who I am in that moment, always subject to change.

I feel like the decrease in consumerism is largely fueled by myself, the desire for less, but I cannot deny that small voice in my head saying, but what about that other part? And maybe my little subconscious minion has a point. Which is where this post even comes from. I’m glad I am noticing it now though, and not years down the road. I think we often change for the ones we love. And that is okay as long as we know it and are okay with that new change.

I am okay with the change in order to find contentment and happiness with what I have (because in general that is a good motto to have), but I want to change for the right reasons, for the gut intuition, and the little voices in my heart and soul. For the happiness, the contentment I feel, not for the pressure or acceptability factor. The only question in the future is can I own it for myself? Can I get rid of that subconscious bugger? And the answer is maybe not. Because all said and done, I can’t go back. It is hard to divorce feelings and subconscious feelings (that’s pretty much why they are subconscious right?) I am okay with that, mostly because it is a fact I have accepted.

So now you are even more thinking what do you do? I move forward, knowing more than I did yesterday about myself and my life. I keep changing and make sure that every new step I take, I take for myself.

I have been wanting to write this post for so long, but it has also taken me that long to summarize my feelings and get to a point of closure. I have within the last couple years become obsessed and not as much with makeup. There have been a variety of reasons for this and I thought I would delve into it here.

I went through the move to Germany and my life overhauled. Everything changed and so did I. I became this lump who knew, or felt like they knew, absolutely nothing about anything. Part of finding who I was went into makeup. Again, this is for a variety of reasons.

1. Being completely alone here made me retreat into this community on the internet where people had passion. Enveloping myself into this community felt like I had an outlet for my new found time and a sense of community. I never felt like I had friends there, since they were just internet presences, but it never the less gave me somewhere to fit in.
2. It was cool to delve into something I never had given much thought and it was a huge learning curve. It also could occupy my time, something I had more and more of every day.
3. I felt like a lump. Not a physical lump nor even like a hit of self confidence, but in order to define myself, I chose this. And it gave me a huge boost of self confidence and happiness to spend time doing something that made me feel great. It made me feel beautiful and I felt like I could define and express myself so much more and experimentally. I could incorporate color, bold looks, and strong lips. I could enhance and focus on what I loved.
4. It is also time that I carve out for myself, my process of getting ready, exquisite joy that is just for me. Time to pamper.

So the sense of community, self-definition and expression coalesced to form this new hobby that I fell into the rabbit hole. Now having gotten out of the rabbit hole, I feel a sense of clarity when I think about my journey into makeup. When I originally thought of this post, I felt more negative about it, thinking it was more about needing this self definition in my life and positive self esteem boost. These were definitely factors. I needed to find something to get me back on my feet. I wanted to experiment, grow up, move on, change. And this coincided with a huge change in my life. I feel pretty confident that these are the mile markers down my journey.

Now there are a lot of things that are contentious about makeup: consumerism and patriarchy. I have various feelings about these which I’ll detail below.

So, consumerism and capitalism I assume go together. There is way too much makeup than you need and there is always a push to get more and buy more. I got totally caught up on this pull, the tide, and the high for a bit. There’s a heavy stream of innovation, collaborations, and newness. There is a huge and high turnover, limited editions and what not. So there is a lot of consumerism involved. I have greatly diminished on this because I’ve hit to where I have the things I enjoy and are trying them out, all with the goal of finding the best ingredients and the things that work for me. It’s a constant try out process to do this, as some things have not worked in either regards. But I full out accept that critique about makeup. What can I say against it? It’s up to each individual how they much they involve themselves. It is important to go into something with eyes wide open and knowing the difference between need and want.

Patriarchy. You rear your head everywhere don’t you? I can’t deny that people have used their patriarchy and made comments about makeup. I also can’t deny that there is a standard of beauty that employers, the media, and maybe also life have. Beauty standards can be heavily influenced by social media and culture. This in and of itself could warrant it’s own post about makeup and patriarchy, but I want to briefly discuss it here. [Maybe if you’re interested in my thoughts about it, comment below!] I don’t want to deny the fact that patriarchy has stuck its head in this post. What am I supposed to do about it? I enjoy makeup for me. Clearly, since not many people comment on it, and some people even comment that they prefer no makeup on me. So makeup is a hobby for myself in so many ways. Writing this post has given me some clarity. I don’t put on make up in order to fulfill an image of beauty that society has laid out for me. Mostly because I don’t even know what that would be for me as an Asian American woman. Who would I even emulate? My celebrity fashion idol is Lucy Liu (but specifically from Elementary), but even there there are things I don’t want and what not. So can I be accused of fulfilling it? Well if you know what it is, I would be interested in knowing, truly. Do I deny that wearing makeup could smooth doors and grease pathways? Do I deny that it could make me seem like a more acceptable woman in society? It could grease doors, in that case, sure. Am I supposed to make them stick more? And yeah it probably does make me seem more ‘acceptable’ if that’s all you’re looking at in that narrow focus.

So I’ve said a lot about the formation of this hobby and in the next post I’ll talk about it’s dissolution.

I recently had to defend Yoga’s merits and benefits. What I picked most was the concentration on breathing and the mantras or intentions for the practice. I know everyone’s practice is different and what they choose to bring to the mat. But for me, Yoga is something I have stuck with when every other form of exercise hasn’t.

• Yoga has provided me with a pure sense of my time. It is truly an act of self love and that is how I approach it. I feel invigorated and flexible and calm after yoga. I love these feelings and that might be what I get back. I can be sore and what not after, but that’s not its goal. It isn’t to push yourself to the limit, and beyond. It’s about practicing, accepting where you are at, and walking along the journey. You will get stronger and more flexible with current practice and challenging yourself.
• The yoga intention is really important to me because it sets something for my mind to focus on. There is always a tendency to be scatter brained and to think of other things. Yoga is about calming the mind as well as the body. It is hard to think of nothing, so the intention gives you something to focus on and ground yourself with.
• There is a focus on breathing which is crucial in Yoga. You combine the movement with the breathing, so you rarely get panting out of breath. You calm and elongate the breath. It is so relieving to me because I get to focus on my breath. Such a unique idea, but it is particularly stress relieving.
• All of this cultivates an inner sense of peace and stillness, which usually lasts for quite a long time in my day. It encourages the nature of change, everything will pass and is temporary. We can just focus on us, our stillness, and our inner self.
• So, Yoga is about melding your mental practice with your physical practice. It is about acknowledging both sides and having them work together to relieve stress. To break through the  wall separating them. There is this idea that you can push your body, to break the limits your body sets because they’re “just in your head”. Yoga does not have this mentality. Yoga sees you as a holistic being, someone who is made up of mind and body and in need of practice in both regard.

I have heard so much about posture and body language and it is totally true. I get that. But what I recently have been hearing about is power poses. Poses that increase your self confidence. A lot of them, or the main gist of them, is to open yourself up. When we get scared or feeling insecure we curl ourselves up, it’s a defense mechanism. But to master a power pose you need to open yourself up, fake it till you make it.

Stand up, straighten your shoulders, look people in the eyes. Don’t cross your arms or fidget. Take up some space.

This is going to be a short post because I’ve talked already about taking up space and posture. But it’s a reminder to find your power pose.

When you are uncomfortable or anxious, remember your power pose. The pose that makes you feel like you can conquer the world. Your superman pose. Your game face.

Find that pose and rock it, use it, make it become a part of you until you don’t even have to remind yourself to do so, like drinking water, and standing straight.

You are a beautiful and unique human being. Own your power whether it be the power to love, to care, to give, to cook. Whatever your power or powers is/are, take them and let them fuel you.

I have a lot of flaws, I am human. Here are some of them, in no order

1. I can be pretty impatient and intolerant (I hate repeating myself many times)
2. I snap, I can feel like it’s okay and then in another moment it is totally not okay and the world is crashing and burning
3. I am pretty self righteous. If I don’t agree with what you are doing, you will know it.

This is also something I read from Dear Sugar. I will quote the problem below in a much clipped version.

I’ve always considered them to be my ‘role model couple’…I asked her what the ‘secret to marriage’ was, and during our conversation about it she revealed things that surprised and upset me. She said while it’s true she and my brother-in-law are happy to be married to each other, there  were several times over the years she doubted they’d make it…that both she and my brother-in-law have cheated on each other

She and her fiance felt that infidelity was an automatic deal breaker and wondered if she should share her marriage with them still (walking her down the aisle). The writer asked Sugar what the secret to a good marriage was, seeing Sugar’s marriage as perfect. Sugar related her own experience where she found out Mr. Sugar was cheating on her and how they dealt with.

Marriage is indeed this horribly complex thing for which you appear to be ill prepared…that’s okay. a lot of people are…a perfect couple is a wholly private thing…it’s only defining quality is that it’s composed of two people who feel perfectly right about sharing their lives with each other, even during the hard times…if you really want to live happily ever after, it you honestly want to know what the secret to sustaining a lifelong ‘healthy love’ is, it would be a good idea to openly grapple with some of the most common challenges of doing so, rather than pretending that you have the power to shut them down by making advance threats about walking out, ‘no conversation required,’ the moment a transgression occurs…people get mucked up in it [life] from time to time. even the people we marry. even us. you don’t know what it is you’ll get mucked up in yet, but if you’re lucky, and if you and your fiance really are right for each other…you’re probably going to get mucked up in a few things along the way…the woman who sent him the postcard pushed us down a path where we made ourselves ready, not to be a perfect couple, but to be a couple who knows how to have a duel when a duel needs to be had…not perfection, but real love. not what you imagine, but what you’d never dream

This was something that captivated me. I think it is because I took back someone who did cheat and it didn’t work. Did I regret doing so? No. I believed they could change and they did too, I think. It’s okay they didn’t, some people cannot change or need a lot of time and motivation. But I stayed to try to make it work because I felt that they were worth making it work, that our love deserved another chance. It didn’t work out in the end. And it was hard, it made me jealous and suspicious, it made him secretive. Our relationship didn’t fail because he cheated and lied and betrayed me, it didn’t work because we were not right for each other on a fundamental level.

Would I do it again? I would. Because I believe that people do make horrible mistakes. Betrayal is hard to deal with and a breach of trust is even harder. What is the key afterwards is open conversation and patience from both sides. I have dealt with a lot of harbored resentment, that I am getting over finally, yay, so I get that, trying to get over something you don’t even realize is there, and once you do it seems like the worst thing and you don’t know how to come out of it. But you do. We all make mistakes and we are all human. Cheating isn’t necessarily born out of a desire to deliberately hurt, it is a mistake and can happen for a lot of reasons. Open communication is key, knowing when to open up issues and talk about them. I have read so many stories about it. I know that dealing with cheating is hard and it can not work, not cannot, but it can just not work. But I believe with the right person, two people who love each other and are willing to try to make it work, it’s worth it. I know not everyone believes in the same as me, and that’s okay. This is just how I feel. I’ve been in situations where I’ve said deal breakers and drawn lines and I’ve crossed them or stood by them. What I’ve learned is that with the right person and with dedication and communication, these things can be a lot less harsh. It’s about the individuals, their ability to change, to work out their issues, to dedicate themselves.

I didn’t want to post this on my book review site because I wanted to talk more personally about the advice I read in the book. Dear Sugar is a book with advice columns from the same woman, Cheryl Strayed, who wrote Wild. I found the book really easy to read and get into. It reminded me of reading the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, except more honest.

Trusting yourself means living out what you already know to be true.

I don’t even know truly what that means to me, it just stuck out to me and I had to write it down. To me it means following your gut, sticking to what you know to be true, believing in the power of your own intuition and instincts. There are so many things in the world trying to convince us not to, but we need to listen to that little voice and find the ability to live true to ourselves.

Another thing that resonated me was Sugar’s realization that she didn’t need to be broken for a man to love her. It reminded me so much of when I first started my current relationship. I was in such a vulnerable and broken place. I knew I left my other relationship for the right reason. For the first time in my life I was certain that I was done. I felt like the door had closed on me and I locked it (with a clarity I have now that didn’t because at the time it felt like even after all the shit I went through I still got the door shut on me and it felt unjust it felt like I deserved to slam it and be the one to close it, but I realize now that no matter why it closed, I got to lock it and walk away and that is the best actually). I felt so irrevocably lost and broken, so done with love and everything. I thought maybe I was totally messed up, incapable of feeling and deep into hurting myself emotionally (it felt like the last years had been a roller coaster of ups and downs that had just numbed me to the reality, it had cut my friendships, isolated me and I had no idea what I would do). I needed to get out to just completely leave and get out of there. I found it lethargic and it provided me with this complete outlet to sort my life out which was still messy as hell and totally complicated. I jumped into this fling which I had no clue would become anything (although I am a pretty in depth monogamous person so this ‘fling’ idea was already going to be another emotional battle, but I denied that and totally didn’t think about it – oh except when I went walking and cried in the rain). I jumped head first into this relationship and poured my heart out on the daily about all the horrible stuff and the stuff I hadn’t told anyone. I seemed like a crazy person, not only because I let it all go, but it made me seem like a mad woman to have endured it so long. I was even told this. It was true, but at the time I had been blinded by home, naivety, and ‘love’ (although what it was was just a warped up twisted distant twice removed cousin of love who no one can let out of the basement because it is so toxic). I had no clue who I was, and yet I found someone who could deal with it, could see me at my very lost and broken self and accepted it, even loved it.

Now here’s where I get back to the post and off this giant tangent, did I feel like I needed to be broken in order to be loved? While I never would have believe it before, I believed it then. Why? Because I thought that being vulnerable was attractive? No clue. But it was so much a part of me that I couldn’t not be broken and smashed. I couldn’t separate this temporary, which didn’t feel like it at the time, and my strong little flicker of self who was just being given the freedom to grow for the first time in five years. I poured myself into thinking I was broken, because it seemed to me that is what you do. Until I believed it so much I pretty much thought, I have so much baggage it’s probably going to take a ridiculously long time to undo this.

I don’t remember a lot of when I healed, when I moved on. I still have baggage, while a ton less, I just left it behind when I left my relationship and that train wreck behind. So this whole tangent doesn’t really provide that much substance to the actual story or the question, but it’s what I thought of when I read that one story.